Yard MD blog: Wings from the west

Rare bird wanders across the continent to Menasha feeder

Jan. 15, 2014

A Varied Thrush, a rare winter visitor to Wisconsin from the Pacific Northwest, pauses for a drink at the Menasha home of Ron Griesbach. The bird is keeping company with an unsually large flock of wintering robins that have chosen to spend the season here in the Fox Valley rather than wing south. / Submitted

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Post-Crescent Media

Rare bird sightings continue to make headlines in wildlife watching circles here in the Fox Valley this winter.

I received a call from reader Ron Griesbach in Menasha inquiring about an odd-looking robin at his feeder. He said the “robin” was wearing a tuxedo! The man was able to capture a photo of the bird through the window as it fed in a crabapple tree and drank from his heated birdbath with the neighborhood robins.

As a interesting sidenote, the number of robins still present in this neighborhood, this late in the winter, is a testament to the importance of planting berry-producing trees and shrubs in your property. Scores of robins flew throughout this Menasha neighborhood, feasting on crabapple trees lining the streets. Sheltering white-cedars that grow in many yards here provide protection on the coldest nights.

The photo provided is that of a Varied Thrush, a relative of the robin from the Pacific Northwest. A bird with a haunting cry and beautiful orange and blackish-gray plumage, the varied thrush is a well-known wanderer during winter, a rare, but regular visitor to the Midwest during the cold months.

Each year half a dozen or so of these birds are reported in Wisconsin, mostly coming to feeders, and mostly in the company of robins. They have been known to wander as far east as New York. Why they do this is not completely understood.

In its summer range in the rainforests of the Pacific Northwest, the bird is a shy one, like many of the other woodland thrushes, keeping to the shadows of the deep forest and chiming from the mossy stumps and logs with its serene song. Foraging for insects and worms in the warm season, the birds switch to berries and seeds in winter.

With relatively mild weather expected for the next few weeks, and an abundance of crabapples present in this neighborhood, this bird appears to have a good chance of survival.

Later in spring, the very thrush will wing back west toward the Pacific coast that it calls it's summer home.